"What de chu'ch gonter do?" "Brudder Adams he kin preachify tell Ah comes back." "Why 'n' cher stay here?" "An' git shot?" She dismissed him, in the limp dawn, with wifely solicitude. "Don' cher be up to no tricks, Tom, or Ah 'low Ah'll pull all yer wool out when Ah git hol' of you." "You'll see me when you see me, ole' 'ooman." And he was gone. One warm morning in the April following, the Judsons' watchman and man-of-all-work, Peter, hesitated before his mistress, a barrow of uprooted poison-ivy poised in the grip of sturdy old hands, which were immune from the noxious irritation. "Ah done got a letter f'um Tom Cole, Miss' Mary." "Where is he?" "He's dead." "You got a letter from him?" "No'm; it was f'um de man he wu'ked for, in Coalstock. Died Chuesday las' week, de letter said. Dey buried him. Ah done tol' Stella." "That's too bad, Peter. I'll have to speak to Stella." Her heart went out to the black woman, who had lost her husband; what if it had been Paul! She determined to turn over to the widow an old black silk that she had noticed the wrinkled eyes coveting. The gift was lavishly appreciated. "Thank 'ee, thank 'ee, Miss' Mary. Ah'm gwineter fix it up wid puhple--it'll make a gran' mo'nin' dress!" "You didn't go to the funeral?" "Ah ain't got no time to waste on no funerals, Miss' Mary, 'less dey's closer'n Coalstock." Jim, the second boy, joined Ed in work upon the mountain; Will and Babe continued at school, although Stella grumbled about a sixteen-year-old negro bothering with books, when a job was handy. Diana arrived home the last of May. The whole family surrounded her admiringly, as she hung the framed diploma on the sitting-room wall. "Hit's beautiful," Stella said simply, as the daughter pointed out the school buildings in the half-tone oval in the center. There was no opening, however, for a negro milliner in Adamsville. Tired with the futile search for work prepared for by her education, she replaced Stella in the Judson kitchen, to allow the elder woman the greater freedom which "washin'" permitted. With the coming of the clearing gangs, Will joined his two brothers at the work, leaving only fourteen-year-old Babe at school. Even he longed for the jingle of pay-day wealth in his overalls. One day he announced at home that Mr. Hewin had taken him on as a helper. "Three dollars a week, maw. What good is school, anyway?" Then began a new period in the life of the Cole boys. The mountain had taken them to its red bosom; the lesson of isolated self-reliance which it had taught to Pelham Judson came in parallel form to them. They were a gang, four strong, which could cope with any equal number of Lilydale negroes, or Scratch Ankle or Buzzard Roost rock-throwers. If a larger number got after them, there was the mountain they could retreat to; its rocky reinforcement and refuge furnished safety.